"Happiness is a drink, a fag or a shag."
Apologies if the following post comes across like a pity parade - it kind of is.
I finished my first year last week. I successfully submitted my last assignment, and I didn't even have to upload a photo to Facebook as proof. Huzzah!
To be honest, I was happy to see the back of the place. I feel like I went through a reverse emotional cycle when it came to college. I found it easy at the start, and was deliriously happy. However, I struggled towards the end. This was largely due to external factors.
I don't want to go into anything too much. Other people are involved here, and I'm not entirely sure how happy they'd be if I went into extensive detail about things that they didn't want to be discussed in the public domain.
My uncle died. It wasn't unexpected, but I don't think that makes a situation any less sad. I'd be lying if I said we were very close or we had a 'special' relationship. But he was a good man. He was always good to me growing up, and to my brother and sister. I knew he, and my aunt, would have done anything for me had I ever been in need. He felt more like a blood relative than an in-law, and it was a shame to see him go. . On the other hand, it was wonderful to see how much of a positive impact he's had on my family and beyond as we reflected on his full life.
A week later, my godfather died. This was not expected. My godfather was not a relative - I was the only one of my siblings to have a god parent that wasn't. But it made no difference.
A large part of my childhood was spent in their house. There, I would draw moustaches and devil horns on all the people in the paper. I would play with their family pet, (Ben, a beast of a dog), for hours, one slobbery tennis ball after another. His wife would give me Weetos and all the other delicious things I wasn't allowed at home, and he would tease me gently and wind me up about anything and everything.
He was good natured and good humoured: a larger-than-life character. He was well-known within the community, as a golfer, a Navy man, a good guy. I knew him as my godfather.
My mam told me before the funeral that he was delighted when my dad asked him to be my godfather. And I was delighted that it was him that was asked. He was my dad's best friend from the age of 18, and I cannot fathom how difficult it must have been to let him go.
On top of that, my dad was asked to give the eulogy. Naturally, he wrote it the morning of, (after much protest from my poor mother - he knew what he wanted to say in his head, wasn't that enough?)
He tripped up here and there - understandably - but otherwise he did a great job, and summed him up perfectly.
"If he could sing, he would have been perfect," he said.
Death and funerals are the only times when such great displays of strength are really acknowledged and appreciated. Similarly, at my uncle's funeral, my cousin - his son - gave a witty, poignant eulogy to a packed church in Dublin. I struggle to speak in public as it is, hence why I was so proud of both my dad and my cousins for giving eulogies dedicated to someone they'd loved and lost.
Death unifies us. It's the only thing that every person has in common - we're all going to die. Though its immediate repercussions are devastating and incomprehensible, death can also bring a sense of togetherness. Families following death resemble the pieces of a mosaic.
This all came to me at my uncle's removal. The way we deal with grief is so typically Irish. One branch of the family will be popping out lasagnes, sandwiches and cake like there's no tomorrow. The other battalion will sit, murmer, comment on the corpse, eat and ask you the same questions about college over and over and over.
"I mean, he looks well, doesn't he? He doesn't look ... Sick, like."
"The glasses. He's missing his glasses. I wondered what was different about him."
"And tell me, do you have exams? What are you doing for accommodation next year?
Then, all of a sudden, the two sides amalgamate. Before you know it, it's 10 o'clock, and 90% of your family are inebriated - and still scolding you for drinking vodka-laced cocktails with your aunts, (despite being 18 and all).
It'd be difficult to capture a moment like that under different circumstances. Beautiful, raw, unique and completely unconventional. Although I still can't contemplate a life without either of them, it's nice to be able to take something from it that is positive.
"If I never see another sandwich again ... " My other cousin grumbled.
When it's salad and cucumber, who could blame him?
